The Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina (), often referred to as Bosnian Croats () or Herzegovinian Croats (), are native to Bosnia and Herzegovina and constitute the third most populous ethnic group, after Bosniaks and Serbs. They are one of the three constitutive nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Most Croats identify themselves as Catholics and speak Croatian. The 2013 population census in Bosnia and Herzegovina recorded 544,780 residents registering as of Croat ethnicity.
Croats have been present in Bosnia and Herzegovina since the Slavic migrations to the Balkans in the 7th century and have been associated with Western Christianity. They lived in regions that were part of the Kingdom of Croatia under native rulers and, later, in personal union with Hungary, encompassing large parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the west until the 16th century. The Croats also lived under the Kingdom of Bosnia until it fell to the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 15th century. Between the 15th and 19th centuries, the Croats as Catholics were a special confessional community within the Ottoman Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although the majority were serfs, they dominated the trade, while the Bosnian Franciscans, the only surviving remnant of the medieval Bosnian kingdom, were the leading cultural and educational institution. However, the Catholics were often persecuted by the Ottomans, prompting many to flee the area, especially during the Great Turkish War and the Morean War in the second half of the 17th century, when their status diminished and their numbers were reduced to 30,000. At the end of the 17th century and in the early 18th century, the number of Catholics began to increase, with many of those who had fled returning.
In the second half of the 19th century, especially during the Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Croats became active political subjects, participating in Croatian national revival and developing their own modern political, cultural and educational institutions. After World War I, the Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia. During the World War II, Bosnia and Herzegovina was incorporated into the Independent State of Croatia. Following 1945, Croats were recognised as one of the constituent peoples of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina within socialist Yugoslavia. During the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the Bosnian War of the 1990s, Croat political and military institutions, including the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia and its military force, the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), played a significant role in the conflict and in the establishment of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Today, Croats remain one of the three constituent peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
History
Early Middle Ages
The dating of the presence of the Croats – in the sense of a modern ethnic identity – since the early medieval times in all territories of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina is a matter of dispute among historians due to its anachronism.
The exact date of the Croats' arrival in the territories of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina is a matter of dispute among historians. Ivo Goldstein, Neven Budak and Mladen Ančić, the leading Croatian medievalists, support different views. Goldstein follows the mainstream theory and shares views of Bogo Grafenauer and Božidar Ferjančić that the Croats settled in the 7th century and conquered Dalmatia in a war against the Pannonian Avars, leaning mainly on the De Administrando Imperio, a 10th-century work of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII. Ančić, siding with the late-migration theory exposed by Lujo Margetić, dates the arrival of Croats between the late 8th and early 9th century. Budak's view is that the Croats originally formed as a social elite within the Avar Khaganate, with the Slavic element being the most important.
John Van Antwerp Fine Jr. and Noel Malcolm believe that the westernmost parts of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina were part of the Duchy of Croatia, while the easternmost parts were part of the Principality of Serbia. According to The New Cambridge Medieval History, "at the beginning of the eleventh century, the Croats lived in two more or less clearly defined regions" of the "Croatian lands" which "were now divided into three districts" including Slavonia/Pannonian Croatia (between rivers Sava and Drava) on one side and Croatia/Dalmatian littoral (between Gulf of Kvarner and rivers Vrbas and Neretva) and Bosnia (around river Bosna) on other side.
High and late Middle Ages
In 1102, Croatia entered into a union with the Kingdom of Hungary. After this, Bosnia, which was previously part of the Kingdom of Croatia, began to disassociate itself from Croatia. At first, Bosnia became a separate principality under Ban Kulin, who managed to solidify Bosnian autonomy at the expense of more powerful neighbours. Still, it was only in the 14th century that Bosnia became a formidable state. In the 14th century, King Tvrtko I conquered part of western Serbia and later parts of the Kingdom of Croatia, which he accomplished by defeating various Croatian nobles and supporting Hungary. Thus, the Kingdom of Bosnia emerged, but part of the present territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina remained in the Kingdom of Croatia.
Regarding culture and religion, Bosnia was closer to Croatia than the Orthodox lands to the east. The Diocese of Bosnia is mentioned as Catholic in the 11th century and later fell under the jurisdiction of the Croatian Archdiocese of Split. In the 12th century, it came under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Dubrovnik. Another connection between Bosnia with Croatia is that Bosnian rulers always used the political title "Ban Kulin" in similarity to their Croatian counterparts. Due to the scarcity of historical records, no definite figures dealing with the religious composition of medieval Bosnia exist. However, some Croatian scholars suggest that a majority of Bosnia's medieval population were Catholics, who, according to Zlopaša, accounted for 700,000 of the total Bosnian population of 900,000. Some 100,000 were members of the Bosnian Church and other 100,000 were Eastern Orthodox Christians.
Ottoman Empire
In the mid-15th century, the Ottoman Empire began to conquer Bosnia. In 1451, they took the Vrhbosna province, and in 1463, they conquered Bosnia. Herzegovina was conquered in 1481, while northern Bosnia remained under Hungarian and Croatian rule until 1527, when the Ottomans took control. After the Turkish conquest, many Catholics in Bosnia converted to Islam, and their numbers in some areas declined as many fled due to fear of conversion and persecution. The Ottoman conquest changed the demographics of Bosnia and Herzegovina, reducing the Catholic population. The present-day boundaries of Bosnia and Herzegovina were established in 1699 with the Treaty of Karlowitz, which ended the Austro-Ottoman War. Another significant event for the Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina is the boundary established by an agreement between the Republic of Ragusa and the Ottoman Empire, under which Ragusans promised to cede a part of their territory in Neum to the Ottomans to protect themselves from the Republic of Venice.
In 1624, Pjetër Mazreku estimated the population of Bosnia, excluding Herzegovina and the Adriatic Hinterland. This estimate was revised by Nenad Moačanin, a historian, in 2013, numbering 225,000 Muslims (50%), 150,000 Eastern Orthodox Christians (33.3%), and 75,000 Catholics (16.7%). Bishop Marijan Maravić, who governed the Diocese of Bosnia, which covered most of the Bosnian region, recorded 75,196 Catholics in his jurisdiction in 1650, while his successor Bishop Nikola Ogramić Olovčić estimated the number of Catholics in the Diocese in 1675 to be 80,000.
The Ottomans launched a war against the Habsburg Monarchy to conquer Vienna, triggering the Great Turkish War (1683–1699). This conflict proved disastrous for the Catholic population of northern and central Bosnia, whose numbers sharply declined. The 1697 campaign of Prince Eugene of Savoy had the most devastating impact: he ordered the destruction of Ottoman property, prompting nearly 40,000 Christians, the majority of whom were Catholics and mostly from northern, but also from central Bosnia, to flee with his forces to the Catholic-held Slavonia in fear of Ottoman reprisals.
After the successful defence of Vienna (1683), Christians in Dalmatia, Herzegovina, and Bosnia rose against Ottoman rule, plundering Ottoman estates and forcing garrisons into their forts. Supported by Venetian arms and supplies, local hajduks raided Ottoman lands. Allied with the Habsburgs, Venice opened the Morean War (1684–1699), which spread into Dalmatia, Herzegovina, and western Bosnia. The war caused major migrations from Herzegovina, west Bosnia, and Dalmatia to the reconquered territories, where the Venetians resettled refugees and recruited them as soldiers, offering land and tax exemptions. By the war's end, more than 30,000 Christians, both Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, had migrated to Dalmatia.
During these two wars, two-thirds of Catholics emigrated outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina, or around 70,000 people. The total Catholic population of Bosnia and western Herzegovina fell to around 30,000, and in eastern Herzegovina to only 2,200.
Up until the end of the 17th century, the Catholics, along with Jews, were the leading merchant class of the Ottoman Bosnia and Herzegovina, mainly due to their good standing with the Republic of Ragusa in the south. The wars at the end of the 17th century brought demographic, social and urban catastrophe to the Catholics, with their merchant class almost completely disappearing. Their place as a leading merchant class was taken by the Eastern Orthodox Christians in the 18th century, including Serbs, Greeks and Armenians.
After the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, the number of Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina started to recover in the first half of the 18th century. Numerous families that left during the war returned, both from Dalmatia and Slavonia. The return was encouraged by the Ottoman authorities, giving the returnees amnesty with abandoned lands, free tools and seed. The recovery was much more rapid in Bosnia and western Herzegovina, the area served by the Franciscans. The return from Dalmatia to southwestern Bosnia and western Herzegovina became more rapid after the 1733 plague, when the local Muslim landlords stimulated their return. The growth was affected mainly by natural growth, and less by migrations. The bishop of Bosnia didn't manage to record all areas under his jurisdiction due to the Austro-Turkish war in 1737. That year, he collected the data from western and central Bosnia and reported 16,504 Catholics. His successors conducted a census of the entire jurisdiction and recorded 39,942 Catholics in 1743. The recovery process was especially slow in eastern Herzegovina. The bishop of Trebinje , reported in 1708, that there were only 2,200 Catholics in his diocese, which covered the area. His successor, Sigismund Tudišić, noted that in 1751, there were 3,009 Catholics. Only a century later, in 1858, the number of Catholics rose to 8,760.